Graduate Programs Guide

All graduate students will be able to see their online Academic Audit. Students who start in fall 2025 or later will be expected to follow the course requirements listed on their audit to complete their credentials. Students who started prior to fall 2025, may complete a Degree Schedule or use their online audit. The Academic Audit will describe the appropriate path for each student.

Graduate students, graduate program directors, graduate program assistants, and graduate advisors will have access to the Academic Audit. If a program director or assistant doesn’t have access, request is by submitting the Update Graduate Staff form. Graduate advisors will be automatically included when they are appointed to Graduate Faculty.

All staff can see all students. Information in the audit is protected by FERPA and should only be viewed or shared by individuals with a legitimate educational interest.

You can find a link to the Academic Audit on Experience. Look for the “Graduate Faculty and Staff” card. You will use your Michigan Tech credentials to log in.  You must be on campus or connected to a VPN. 

• Experience
• Academic Audit

The Degree Progress Checklist is an app designed by Michigan Tech. It can only be viewed by students. It includes:

• A student’s expected graduation term, and a link to update it
• A list of non-curricular requirements, such as RCR training and the Proprietary Rights Agreement form
• A detailed listing of items submitted to complete a dissertation, thesis, or report
• The complete examination committee

The Academic Audit will list the curricular requirements for your degree, but will not include the above items.

The Academic audit is defined by the catalog year, master’s option and prior degrees earned (for PhD students). Each student’s audit will show their unique requirements.

If you think there is an error in an audit, please contact the Graduate School.

The Degree Schedule contains the coursework requirements for their credentials. There are, however, more requirements such as the Graduation Application, or dissertation requirements. Please see the Academic Audit for additional requirements to earn their credentials.

The Academic Audit is organized as a series of blocks.

• The Student Information block lists a student’s name, M number, and information about the credentials. If a student is pursuing multiple credentials, the drop down menu in this block will allow you to select the credential to view.
• The Degree Progress block shows the progress toward your credential and gives options to hide or display in progress or registered courses.
• The Degree block lists the overall requirements for the degree or credential. This block may reference other blocks that need to be completed in order to earn the credential.
• The Program block lists the specific requirements for the graduate program. If a student is pursuing more than one program in the same degree, such as multiple Graduate Certificates, you will see a separate Program block for each certificate.
• The Graduate School Requirements block will list additional requirements from the Graduate School for students completing a dissertation, thesis, or report.

You may find additional blocks that list courses that do not apply to the blocks above. More details on those blocks can be found in other FAQs.

Your advisees are located in a drop down menu in the dashboard block. If your student isn’t listed that means the Graduate School hasn’t received and processed the advisor form yet. Alternatively, you can use the search function to find students.

Click on Advanced Search to display the search options. Use the dropdown menus to select one criteria from each list to narrow your search. If you select more than one option from a single menu, students must meet both criteria in order to be displayed. Click on Custom to display custom criteria developed at Michigan Tech. Some useful items for graduate searches are:

• Student type: find all students who are continuing, or first time students, for example.
• Level: narrow your search to only graduate students
• Graduate Option: this custom field will allow you to find students pursuing a thesis, report, or coursework option.
• Student Probation: find students based on their academic standing
• Department: find all of the students in a college or department. This is useful to display all of the students in a unit when your unit has more than one graduate program or has students from interdisciplinary programs.

Directly underneath the degree pursued (Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy, etc.), you will see the Catalog Year listed. The catalog year is based on the semester the student was admitted into the graduate program. Students complete requirements in place at the time of their admission. Programs review and update requirements each academic year.

The option on file for the degree is listed in the box at the top of the audit. A correct option is required in order to properly display the audit. Master’s degrees may be completed with one of the following options:

• Coursework - CRS
• Thesis - THE
• Report - RPT

More information about the degree requirements for these options can be found on our website or the Academic Audit. 

The Master of Engineering degree has different options:

• Practicum - PRC
• Practicum waived - CRS

The option is assigned when students are admitted to the Graduate School. Prior to enrollment, please contact the admissions team (gradadms@mtu.edu) to update the option.  After enrollment, graduate program directors or assistants can submit a petition on the audit to update the student record.

Even in the first semester, there may be items marked as complete with a green check in the audit. In some cases, these are informational. For example, every audit for a master’s or doctoral degree will include a reminder to review the credentials listed and add any graduate certificates a student is pursuing.

Some programs have requirements that have zero credits. These requirements are things that are allowed or encouraged, but are not required. An example might be completing a co-op experience. 

Exceptions are deviations from the program requirements as prescribed in that catalog year, for example, a course substitution. Exceptions are also how a graduate program adds coursework approved by an advisor. Only graduate program directors and assistants have the ability to enter exceptions to an audit.

The following blocks contain courses that are not allowed to be used toward a graduate program:

• Courses Not Allowed: Courses that do not meet Graduate School requirements are listed here and contain a reason. An example would be courses with BC/C grades. The Graduate School allows no more than six credits of these courses, so any credits above six will appear in this block.
• Courses Not Eligible: These courses are ineligible courses to be used for a credential. An example would be a course with a missing or failing grade, for example.
• Courses Not Used: These courses meet Graduate School requirements, but do not meet program requirements. A graduate program director may make an exception to allow these courses to be used toward the credential.

For students who completed a Degree Schedule, all of the courses will be listed outside of the Graduate Program block, generally in a block called Free Electives or Courses Not Used. They will remain there as a record of completed coursework and no further action is required.

Graduate programs may move eligible courses to the graduate program block by exception.

Courses in this block do not meet the program’s requirements, or they need to be added by exception to the program requirements. They are generally eligible to be used toward a graduate credential. 

These courses are not eligible for any graduate credential. See Degree Requirements for more information. An example would be a course with a low grade (CD, D, F) or audited courses.

These courses do not meet Graduate School requirements, and cannot be applied to program requirements. See Degree Requirements for more information. An example would be exceeding the allowed number of BC/C grades or 3000-level courses. Each course will have a descriptive reason listed.

In the upper right hand corner of the audit, you will find three vertical dots. Click on these to open a menu, and select Course History. The Course History displays courses and grades for each semester along with credit totals and term and cumulative GPA.

In the upper right hand corner of the audit, you will find three vertical dots. Click on these to open a menu, and select GPA Estimator. This tool can help you advise students or see what grades they need to achieve a certain GPA. The Advice Estimator is only available to graduate programs and advisors.

Please submit a new Degree Schedule to the Graduate School with the updated course listing. The Graduate School will review the Academic Audit and determine how best to display the requirements on the Academic Audit by either making appropriate exceptions or processing the requirements manually.

In the upper right hand corner of the audit, you will find three vertical dots. Click on these to open a menu, and select Notes. Click the Add a New Note and enter your note in the Description box and click Save Note to save your entry. There are a few Predefined notes (optional) that can help you get started. The note will appear at the bottom of the audit with a time stamp and log of the creator.

Students can view all notes, and once created, notes can only be deleted by the Graduate School.

Only credentials listed on the Academic Audit are eligible to be awarded. If a certificate is missing, currently enrolled graduate students may complete the Add a Graduate Certificate form.  If a master’s along the way isn’t listed, currently enrolled PhD students may complete the Request to Add a Master’s Degree form.

Graduate programs may admit currently enrolled students into a higher level program in their academic unit by submitting the Request to add a graduate student to a graduate program form or by requesting the student complete an application.

Students in an interdisciplinary program or who want to add a program in a different academic unit will need to complete an application.

For any other questions, please contact the Graduate School.

Currently enrolled graduate students may complete the Add a Graduate Certificate form. Non-enrolled students must apply for admission.  See our Graduate Certificates page for more information.

Currently enrolled PhD students may complete the Request to Add a Master’s Degree form. The master’s degree must be in the same academic unit as the PhD degree. See the form for additional information.

The master’s option is based on the decision at admission. If it is incorrect, or a student has changed their option since enrolling in the program, please submit a petition on the Academic Audit to request an update. Only graduate programs may submit petitions. The Graduate School will review the petition and make the appropriate updates to the student record.

In the upper right hand corner of the audit, you will find three vertical dots. Click on these to open a menu, and select Petitions. Click the Add a New Petition and enter your request in the Description box. Once created, it will appear on the Petition screen with its current status. The Graduate School will review the petition and make approved changes to the audit.

Graduate programs may admit currently enrolled students into a higher level program in their academic unit by submitting the Request to add a graduate student to a graduate program form or by requesting the student complete an application.

Students in an interdisciplinary program or who want to add a program in a different academic unit will need to complete an application.

Currently enrolled students may add a certificate by completing a Request to add a graduate certificate form or master’s along the way by submitting the Request to add a master's degree form. 

Please contact the Graduate School with any questions.

If your program has a requirement for students to complete coursework that has been approved by an advisor, students will see one of the following messages on the audit:

• Your graduate program will enter these courses as exceptions.

• This rule will show as complete until your graduate program enters these courses as exceptions.

Please have the student’s advisor communicate their approved coursework to the graduate program and add an exception to the audit to display those requirements to the student.

The graduate program will need to complete a Transfer Credits form. Please refer to the Transfer Credits page for more information.

The graduate program will need to complete the Accelerated Courses form to indicate which courses can be used. Please refer to the Accelerated Master’s page for more information.

Most graduate programs will allow a previous master’s degree to reduce the number of credits required to 30 credits.  A few programs require that the master’s degree is in a cognate field. In order to qualify for the credit reduction, the Graduate School must have official proof of the master’s degree on file. Please contact the Graduate School for assistance in how to update the records.

All of the credits earned at Michigan Tech will appear on the master’s and PhD degree. The Graduate School will adjust the PhD audit to incorporate the credits earned for the master’s degree into the PhD audit after the master’s degree is awarded. Please contact the Graduate School with any questions.

An exception is a modification of an individual student’s academic audit that is approved by the program to allow changes to degree requirements. They provide flexibility by adjusting specific requirements. Exceptions should have a valid reason and keep in line with the program’s learning outcomes. Exceptions are tied only to the student audit you are viewing, and are specific to a requirement within the body of the audit.

• Also Allow: you add a course to a course list, or add an advisor approved course to a requirement.
• Remove Course/Change the Limit: Removes a course from a requirement, or changes the credits needed to meet a requirement.
• Substitute: allows one course to replace another.
• Waive Requirement: this will waive an entire requirement or set of requirements. The credits need to be made up elsewhere within the audit requirements.

Only Graduate Program Directors and Graduate Program Assistants may enter exceptions. Graduate programs may only enter exceptions in the Graduate Program or Grad Certificate block. Submit a petition to request a change to the degree block. (for example, the Master of Science or Doctor of Philosophy blocks)

At the top tool bar of the academic audit, click Exceptions. 

• Collapse all blocks
• Locate your Graduate Program block and click to open
• Scroll to the requirement that you need to make an exception for and click the plus sign to see a pop-up exception window
• Select the Exception Type needed

Select Waive Requirement as the exception type. 

• Leave the Description block blank
• In the Details box, enter the reason why the requirement is waived, and if authorized by someone other than yourself, enter that person's name.
• Click Add Exception two times
• Remember that waived credits may need to be made up elsewhere to meet the overall credits required for the degree
• After applying the exception, view the audit to verify that it is correct.

Select Remove Course and/or Change the Limit as the exception type. 

• Enter the course prefix and number in the Subject and Number boxes
• In the Description field enter Remove [course number]
• In the Details box, enter the reason
• Click Add Exception
• After applying the exception, view the audit to verify that it is correct.

Select Remove Course and/or Change the Limit as the exception type. 

• Enter the new credit requirement in the Limit box and select Credits from the drop down menu
• In the Description field enter Change Requirement to [credit number]
• In the Details box, enter the reason
• Click Add Exception
• After applying the exception, view the audit to verify that it is correct.

Select Substitute

• Enter the required course in the Change field
• Enter the replacement course in the To field
• Leave the Description field blank
• Enter a reason in the Details field
• Click Add Exception two times
• After applying the exception, view the audit to verify that it is correct.

Select Also Allow 

• Enter the course prefix and number
• Leave the description field blank
• Enter the reason in Details
• Click Add Exception two times
• Repeat as needed to enter multiple courses
• After applying the exception, view the audit to verify that it is correct.

If a student has more than one instance of the same course number, you can pinpoint the exact course by using the qualifier and operator. For example, if two instances of a special topics course were taken, but want to select one of the two in your exception you can use the DW Term qualifier and the Equal to operator. This will allow the system to only select that course.  Term codes: fall = 08  spring = 01  summer = 05.  Use the Year+term code (202508). Without this rule, both instances will apply to the exception.